Sprout Shower

Two springs ago I designed this baby shower invitation to shower my sweet friend and her now-almost-two year old daughter. We didn't know yet that little Maddie was all sugar and spice and everything nice, so this was the neutral gender invitation. They called her "Sprout" up until they named her, so I wanted to work in that cute nickname since I thought it added character and personalized it for them.

I printed them at home (4 x 6) and glued them onto varying earth-toned shimmery pieces of cardstock so there was a border of color. 


Names and personal info are changed....In case you didn't read the part about it being a couple years ago and you try to crash the party :)

Recovering our Chairs

It's funny to think about the family in Houston two years ago who threw these chairs on their curb for trash pickup. They have no idea that some lady (Hi, Mom!) would spot them, call her newly-a-homeowner-with-an-empty-house daughter to describe the trashy chairs that had "good bones" and potential once you looked past the faded purple-gone-brown stained and dog-furry fabric.


Here are the beauties before.
stained fabric (although awesomely geometric)

mysteriously sticky

and torn

But free :)


And...Fast-forward to when I get around to recovering these trash-to-treasure finds. Here's a peek at my process.


Demo and deep cleaning

primer & paint

meet fun Ikea fabric
staple guns

All arms and legs were used to pull the fabric as taut as I could.

Here's how they turned out. 

I decided to trim the chairs with double welt cording because I read it is the most forgiving trim since it's nice and wide. My favorite local fabric warehouse (remember, the place where I scavenged for my table runner pieces...) makes double-welt cording for a few dollars per yard. It turned out perfect...I love the quirky Tim Burton-y feel of the black and white diagonal stripes.





I love the hand-drawn quality of the Ikea fabric I picked for the seat of the chair and the backside. 




We're happy to have our old chairs a little bit freshened up :)

Fence Suspense

So...

We've been up to something.







{Are we crazy? }

Kitchen Tile

What's been so zooey? you ask.

Oh, our house. We've taken on the usual project of redoing 90% of our flooring by ourselves.

It's character-building for two clean people to have total house destruction for a month.

Yep, our goal is to have the whole flooring project done in a month.

Yep. We're D.I.O. {doing it ourselves} and we have just completed our tile work in our kitchen!

{Hooray!}

There was a lot involved.

Such as spending a week worth of work nights whacking up the winyl {vinyl...har har} and carefully removing baseboards and prepping the slab.

We saw down to the bare concrete.

Cut cut cut, measured, did lots of planning, and mortared. {not in that order}

And made great progress, finishing in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

We're pleased.

What's next? you say. Well, we have already started to pull up the carpet...

To prep for laminate :) Lots and lots of laminate!

Our prayer is that God would use our home {and us} to welcome, serve, and shelter many, all along the way making Himself known. He has blessed us with much and we want to open our home to be a vessel for His use.

Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.

Isaiah 4:5-6

I Made a Table Runner

...Well actually, I made 1 1/2 table runners (before my time expired and Christmas gift-giving began!) with the help of my new {old} Singer machine.
I had a hay day at the fabric store (which is more like a warehouse of thousands of choices) where I grabbed lots of my favorite samples. Then I picked 2 neutrals {you'll see the butter yellow and taupe} to make the runner two-sided.
I roughly cut up the samples into rectangles and added a few samples I had at home {remember my roman shade and dining chairs? and my cornice boxes?}

I sewed on patchwork blocks out of the samples at the ends of my neutral fabrics, making sure my modern:traditional and earthtones:bolds ratios felt right.

Then putting the two long neutral pieces together with the sample-sides {pretty-sides} face to face or inside out, I sewed all the way around the perimeter except leaving 6 inches open for me to flip it back right-side-out. Got all that?

Okay, now it feels like a table runner!

I poked out all the corners with my scissor tips, ironed it flat {cautious of the not-yet-sewn part}, and then sewed all the way around the perimeter.

I love that the patchy, loose look allowed me to make lots of little rookie mistakes. It has character :)

And it was a really fun surprise for my sister {this guy's mama} and mama {this one's mama}

You can make one, too. It's quite fun--and now I see see skirts, pillows, and jackets with new eyes as my appreciation for the art of sewing has increased tenfold.

{Two runners are shown, 54" x 14"}

Sewing: Crash Course

Well, it's a new year (Happy New Year!) and I picked up a new skill.

Or at least I took myself through a crash course of sewing, with the 1956 Singer manual I pulled up online leading me delicately through each step. I'm now convinced we modern-day Americans have it easy with gadgets that practically work themselves...and are much more user-friendly than the antiquity of a sewing machine I now call my own.

My great aunt was probably charmed into buying her 1956 Singer 99K by a commercial like this one:

And I inherited it!

So of course, I had to dream up a project. I had to put my Singer to use before I "lost my ever-loving mind."

Stay tuned for what I made :)

Dining Table

Remember how our dining glass top was resting on saw horses for months? Oh, I didn't mention that?...Well, it was.

And though it was entertaining to get comments like, "Hmm, that's a--unique table...." we acted on our grand plan to build a base. It's a simple design; clean geometry and painted butter yellow. We have been enjoying it, and after sharing a few meals with friends with our creation in the supporting role [har har], it has proven sturdy and stable. I think it fits us nicely.

We put it together one afternoon.

Primed and painted.

Yep, typically used for fence posts...perfect! We love character.

And...

All in a day's work. And much, much cheaper than buying one.

What do you think?

Old & New

Old cabinet door.

New paint & knobs.

Longtime friends in a new house.

New key holder.